The world of automotive design, like so many things in life, relies heavily on the concept of intent. If something looks like the designer wanted it to look that way, then that’s a victory, at least in part. That’s also what makes the concept of “retro” so interesting. A retro design can only really be considered retro if the intent of the designer was to specifically reference the look and feel of a specific time in the past, and translate that into the contemporary design vocabulary. Or, to put it more simply, did a car designer want the car to kinda look like an older car? In like a retro sort of way?
This is what I’m wondering about with the Volvo 164: can we consider the design of the 164 to be a retro-style design? It has some visual elements that certainly have a retro feel, but was that the designer’s intent? Let’s look a little deeper at the 164 and see if we can figure this out.
The 164 came about as a way to take the midrange Volvo 140 more upmarket, a process that included making room for Volvo’s new inline-six engine. The body from the A-pillar back was the same as the 140, so designer Jan Wilsgaard didn’t have to re-design everything, just the hood, fenders, front end, and so on. With that in mind, let’s look at the design of the 140, which Wilsgaard also designed:
The 140 design was what set the template for Volvo design for several decades to come; it introduced the unashamedly boxy look for Volvos in 1966, which was a significant departure from the curvier Amazon that preceded it. It was a very rational, clean look, unencumbered with ornamentation, and was quite modern for the time. The front end kept with this very clean, simple theme, with a pair of round sealed beam headlights, a stamped aluminum grille panel, and not much else.
The 164’s face is the most significant departure from the 140, with fenders that have a curve that conforms to the round headlamps, an inset, square-ish grille that the hood conforms to, and a pair of round horn grilles/driving lamps. Oh, and some funny turn indicators that sat atop the corners of the bumper, strangely non-integrated into the body.
The look of the 164’s face comes directly from a Volvo concept car/styling exercise, the T358, which Wilsgaard designed back in 1958, a full decade prior to the release of the 164:
It definitely feels upmarket, which was the intent. The T358 was a concept for an swanky V8 Volvo sedan that never quite made it to market. It feels almost British, which is a particular kind of upmarket. There even seems to be some specific British cars that Wilsgaard may have been influenced by when designing the 164, like the Wolseley 6-99 (any direct influence is purely speculative, of course):
There’s definitely a resemblance there; I’m also reminded of the Rover P5:
I think there’s a definite influence there, and both of these cars are from around the time of the T358 concept car, the late 1950s to early 1960s. That does seem to suggest a retro-ish motive in the design of the 164.
But if we look at other contemporary upmarket cars that this Volvo was intended to compete with in 1968 or so, we can see that this general sort of look – prominent upright grille, separate headlight pods, chrome trim, and so on – was present on cars of that era, too. Like on the Mercedes-Benz W114:
I wouldn’t consider the Mercedes-Benz a retro design, though; it was more of an evolutionary type of design, with elements that Mercedes-Benz designers had been gradually refining over the years.
So, I think you could argue that some of the basic traits of the 164’s look were contemporary as well. But, if we consider the cleaner look of the 140 in relation to the 164, I think it’s clear that the 164 was definitely a deliberate step backwards, in the interest of making some kind of link to “tradition” or something like that.
And this brings us back to my original question: can we consider the 164 a retro-look kind of car? I think it could be. I think we tend to think of mass-market retro cars as an hallmark of the late ’90s to early 2000s, with cars like J Mays’ Volkswagen’s New Beetle or the re-born Thunderbird or the new Mini, but maybe the retro phase had a tentative start 20 years earlier? 
I’m still not entirely sure how I’d choose to categorize the 164. I’ve always liked the design, and I’ve always felt it was sort of out of character for Volvo. Thinking about it in the context of a deliberately retro design makes it a little more interesting, I think. It also feels oddly whimsical for normally stoic Volvo, so I appreciate it in that context as well.
Is this an obvious thing? Am I overthinking things? Is it important? I mean, of course it’s important. Vitally so. Maybe now more than ever. So let’s take a poll here; is the 164 just a design that uses some traditionally upmarket-coded elements, or is it a deliberately retro design, as in almost playfully re-appropriating old design motifs, but with an updated design language?
Help me work through this.
Luxury cars just tend to be more conservatively styled. In the 60’s this look was less “retro” and more just “outdated”
My take: Volvo being Volvo.
They needed a taller hoodline for the bigger engine and just took what was already paid for: a 10 years old proposal they could fit in the 140 body without much fuss.
Not retro. Styled to resemble the Mercedes-Benz W114 and an attempt to steal a few sales away from the boys in Stuttgart.
Not reteo, just a bit ugly.
I’ve always preferred the look of the ‘regular’ 140 front-end personally.
I remember thinking the 164 was so freaking ugly. Still do. I hadn’t thought of them in a long time until you brought this up.
But thanks for the W114 picture. I always liked those. And the W123/124 that followed.
My neighbors had a beautiful V70 Turbo, so it’s not like Volvo couldn’t make attractive vehicles. It just took another generation or two. And the 1800ES was very cool looking.
Sadly, the neighbors traded it in for a Lexus NX200. They probably saved me some pain, not being able to take it off their hands for more than what they got as a trade-in.
The V70 wagon that I bought from my neighbor was beautiful but owning it was definitely a painful experience. Soon I was on a first name basis with every employee of the local independent Volvo repair shop.
Sorry about that. My only Swedish car was an ’88 Saab 9000 Turbo, which I also thought was beautiful. I had it for a couple of years and the only thing I had to do besides routine maintenance was replace a muffler. So, I guess I got off easy. A BMW Bavaria was painful to own. A 2001 Jetta TDI was more expensive to keep running than it should have been, but I liked how it drove. I sold it in 2017 and replaced it with a Honda Accord that has been flawless, mechanically. Unfortunately, people keep denting it while parked. Still drives nicely.
I’ll take my 164 in Alfa Romeo flavour please
Those were very nicely styled. I had a Saab 9000T, which was probably a better car (it was nice to me), and was sort of a sister car to the Alfa and a Lancia and the Fiat Croma. Under the hood, the Alfa 164 QV was visually a work of art.
Rover P8; Thats what Detective Chief Inspector Gently drives. Thx.
My dad bought for our family car a 164 in green. After years of buying used, this was brand new from the dealer, and I loved it. Fun fact, when my dad drove 17-year-old me to my assignment as staff at a remote Boy Scout camp, my fellow counselors thought I had arrived in some sort of a Rolls Royce thanks to that prominent grill.
I mean, if that’s retro, then so is a ’75 Cordoba.
I think it it’s influenced by the past, but I believe it takes more than just influence to make something “retro”. On the other hand, if you had told me that the 140 was an evolution of the 164 and not the other way ’round, I’d have totally believed you.
So, maybe it’s retro-ish?
P.S. I also see some ’63 Wagoneer in it, which isn’t a bad thing; I like that look.
I think it’s giving early second generation Camaro, which feels very contemporary
When the 164 came out, I thought it was really cool.
Retro or no, my dad had one of these in the late 70’s and into the mid 80’s. It was basically his work truck for many years and it was a total beast.
I do not think it’s retro exactly because it seems more like a through-line FROM the past than a deliberate calling back TO the past. Many cars in the 60s had this sort of styling. Even the more forward thinking Swedish designs from the period like Pelle Petterson’s P1800 seem to have some of those elements. Like you said, this comes down to intent. I think a more compelling case could be made that Jaguar’s late 60s designs are retro, due to British class optics and pre-war nostalgia.
The grille and fenders are the tell. They were literally separate components on early cars, and full-width grilles were a modernist break. The 140’s evolution takes a step backward (tastefully so). Retro for sure, whatever they called it back then.
I owned a well-used 1971 144S for a few years, and later, when I was in the USAF stationed at DLI in Monterey, I hung out w/ a guy who had inherited his Dad’s 1972 164E, and drove that up and down the coast for months, including a big road trip from Monterey to the high desert somewhere around Lancaster, and up 395 to Susanville.
While the 4 in the 144 was peppy, the inline 6 in the 164 was smoooooth, and I particularly liked the overdrive it was equipped with.
I wouldn’t call the 164 design retro – which implies a purposeful intent to look backwards in time design-wise to what had made that brand popular in the past. It was just a way to make the 164 feel more formal and upscale than the prosaic 140 series cars – after all, this was the late 60’s we’re talking about, when upscale cars generally did not have minimalist grilles.
Volvo often cribbed from other’s prior designs (Look at a PV444/544, then look at a 1946 Ford – then look at am Amazon, and look at a 1955 Chrysler) – They were just bringing popular and attractive design themes from other markets and brands to the home market.
This is a tough question. Jaguar was still selling a front end that was broadly similar into the 1980s. And that design wouldn’t have been called retro.
I miss my 164e. Bought for $200 from a junkyard owner who used it to tow and launch his saltwater fishing boat. It was maroon all the way to the line where the rust started.
Doing interstate pulls in it with the bw automatic locked up in overdrive was incredibly fun. These motors sound great with a cherry bomb muffler. Too bad I didn’t know enough to adjust the 1st and 2nd gear bands and get another summer out of it.
The ecu was the size of a pizza box and would heat up the passengers seat better than my friends 760 heated seats.
A BW 35 with overdrive???
lol fair. No. I guess it was 3rd gear /drive. Still felt good coming from a diesel vanagon.
For how long do style cues have to have gone out of production for a re-introduction of that style to be ‘retro’.
Is the 164 ‘retro’ or ‘outdated/old fashioned/legacy’?
I have the grille from one of these, bought from a Calgary scrapyard for peanuts just because it looked cool and I could probably do something cool with it.
Twenty-five years later I haven’t quite figured out what that is…
I had the 264. The six was crap compared to the 4 and the Amazon was just pretty. Like a Karmann Ghia pretty. But the Amazon was indestructible whereas the Ghia was destructible
Completely different engine from the 164, which was a Volvo inline 6 derived from the Volvo B20 engine.
I defer to your expertise and knowledge. I will now be looking for a used 164 as I love that face and Saab is no more
I can’t speak to that I6 but I might be able to speak to the brakes. A buddy of mine had a 142s: 4 wheel discs in a 1960s family car!
It may not have been fast but that thing could stop on a dime.
Not only were there 4 wheel discs, but the parking brakes were drums inside the rear discs – so the 140/240 series effectively had 6 brakes.
Which was one of my justifications to select the 144S – the safety aspect of any other 10 year old car which was not a Mercedes at the time was simply non-existant.
Yeah, the Volvo 140 was waaaay ahead of the curve.
Consider this- the 240 series is an evolution of the 140 unibody. Both models share the same glass, doors, passenger safety cage, and 4-link rear end. Aside from the cosmetic update, the biggest physical differences are McPherson struts, overhead cam, and flush door handles.
With the addition of a driver’s airbag and ABS, The Volvo 240 maintained a 3-star safety rating into the mid 2000’s. All built on a unibody design from the early 1960s.
Also not credited enough: Volvo’s Lambda Sond system:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/tech/cc-tech-1979-volvo-242-lambda-sond-volvo-and-bosch-revolutionize-engine-technology/
The same guy who has the 142s used to brag about the Lambda Sond in his mom’s 244. This was HS so it was a while before I appreciated for myself what he kept rambling on about. I think we can all appreciate cleaner air.
Oh and that paint. Volvos had GREAT paint!
Yeah, inventing the oxygen sensor is pretty awesome.
This is why I have a hard time not being a Volvo fan. They really *were* the GOAT of making safety and engineering innovations in good-faith. This is also why I have such a hard time getting past their current trajectory of capacitive touch window switches and other techno-dystopian crap.
They were the GOAT but the rest of the world listened and caught up. Even an Altima of 10 years ago could be crushed by a semi and yet protect the driver enough for them to walk away. Cars are cleaner, more fuel efficient and for the most part very reliable. Volvo cannot shine in those areas anymore.
What most of those “other guys” are not is built like Volvos. That thick, rich Volvo paint, I need more of that. The feeling of driving a vault, yes please! The seats too, those were awesome.
Yes, the vault-like feel, good paint and galvanized rust proofing, good ergonomics and design are all areas Volvo could continue to do well if they tried. Plus they do have those stretch goals of ‘no fatalities in a Volvo vehicle by x date’ which is still commendable.
They have styling down, but the ergonomics are gross, and apparently reliability of both mechanical and software systems are lacking in the Geely era vehicles.
I guess the old business model of building solid cars that last 20 years just doesn’t pay.
“I guess the old business model of building solid cars that last 20 years just doesn’t pay.”
Sure it does or at least it did and not so long ago. My 2006 Honda Accord is still going strong and it’s asked for little more than consumables. Last I checked Honda was still in business. Take care of a Gen7 Accord and it’ll just keep going.
One could argue modern cars won’t last 20 years. Perhaps that’s true, however cars get junked before 20 years for reasons other than unreliability. Even Volvos used to go to the junkyard after a bad crash.
Sorry, kind of a dumb statement on my part.
I think it’s fair to say 20 years was asking a lot of most 70s and 80s cars, unless they never saw salt or high mileage. Volvos bucked the trend. I remember a few 80s & 90s Hondas rolling around my town in the early 2000s, but we’re talking single digits. There were 240s, 960s and 850s with their original owners deep into the 2010s. Some of that is probably the behaviour of the ownership demographics, but the Hondas would have outsold Volvo by a wide margin.
Now cars are lasting longer than ever on average, but like you say, a Volvo isn’t much safer or more reliable than any other vehicle. The rest of the market caught up. Hondas & Toyotas haven’t been tin cans for a long time. Hell, even Subarus and Hyundais last. Rust proofing might still be above average for Volvo, but I don’t really know what that’s like on the Geely cars.
When you put it that way, it becomes obvious that Volvo was always doomed by market rules changing to favor leaner, sharkier companies. Good faith is for suckers when neoliberalism is at the helm.
Sadly you aren’t wrong. If I recall, keeping the 240 in production into the 1990s was also an act of goodwill, to both customers and the employees that worked at the plant.
Again, a cool move that endeared customers and employees to the brand, but likely one of many choices that kept profits low, and Volvo Cars uncompetitive.
Here’s a video of the 240 production line. So much hand labour, and not a robot in sight…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gzF6wt3jXAY
Even by 1987- A year after winning Group A with the 242 Turbo- the 240 was an anachronism, and hopelessly out of date from a manufacturing perspective. While this kind of hand-building might have flown over at Bentley or RR, there was no way continuing to produce a 1960’s platform made any economic sense for a model that was supposed to sell at 1990’s family car prices.
I’m struggling with this. On the plus side of Retro is that it looks like an older design than the 140 series. The 140s series looks almost like a 1980s car, even though it is from the 60s and early 70s.
On the other side, is that there are cars from that time period that were considered new looking that aren’t that far off in how they look. (gen 2 Camaro, Vega come to mind with someone similar faces).
I decided to define Retro as having clear call backs to a previous design. Like how so many Mustangs have a fake side vent like the 1964.5. or how so many Lincoln Continentals, ended up with fake spare tires or how the New Bettle is shaped the Bug. These call backs are clearly “Retro” and are unsuccessful more times than not. Like how the 1st Gen Camaro is a pretty car, but all the attempts at making a Retro version look off because modern cars have giant A pillars for airbags that make the front look chunky now matter what Chevy tries.
On a different note about Volvos, I’ve discovered a Swedish Band called Royal Republic. They decided to make a 4 part video series of the mis-adventures of a fictional struggling Death Metal band trying to score their first gig. A really nice looking yellow 142 features in 3 of the 4 videos of the series.
For example…
https://youtu.be/hy3B0JOdc4g?list=RDhy3B0JOdc4g
I wouldn’t classify it as “retro” so much as “whimsically interpretive”. It definitely incorporates elements like those on the Wolseley 6-99 and the Rover P5, but they were only about 10 years older than the 164. I know there’s no strict definition, but I associate retro with call-backs to multiple decades prior, rather than a decade or less.
Mercedes was still looking like Mercedes then, VW still looked like a car from the 30s, same with Rolls Royce.